A few days ago, I noticed that the Chinese restaurant down the road from us had shut down. I believe that was the third failure of that takeout in the last four years, given it had had three "new owners" signs, a name change, and a paint job during that period.
We ate Chinese from there twice, I believe in iterations one and three. It was pretty standard West Coast Chinese, nothing super-exciting, but reasonable comfort food. Iteration three, I think, was better. They hit the right balance of seasonings.
Note, though, that I said we'd eaten there twice in the last four years. It was never our regular takeout; that honor belonged to Chef At Wok, which is further away. You could walk to the closed Chinese place and back in 10 minutes; Chef at Wok is 40 minutes round trip walking, so we always drive to get pickup. It's not that different from the closed Chinese place. Why choose them?
Here's the list I came up with:
- The owners live in the neighborhood. Susan has seen them shopping in the QFC. Localness counts.
- And the owners know who we are. They know our names. They ask about Annabel. We talk neighborhood politics and their kids.
- They've had the same chef for a number of years, an old Chinese guy with a big smile and wok hay.
- Their mu shu is pretty good.
- And the name probably plays into it too.
Again, it's not like the closed Chinese place was trash while Chef At Wok was the cheap Chinese answer to Canlis. They weren't all that much different, aside from some differences of opinion of what goes in General Tsao's Chicken. But we chose "our Chinese," and we've stayed with "our Chinese," and until Canlis opens a Chinese restaurant in Broadview that will give us a $20 dinner, they will remain "our Chinese." They're good, dependable, and always there to bail us out of cooking when we're too tired.
I wonder if this is the case for everyone else on our block. I've seen quite a few of them at Chef At Wok.
Comments
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I knew the place in the strip mall was going to be good when I walked in there the first time and saw a mother and son--the boy was about five--sitting at a table in a back corner snapping string beans. Family labor is always a good sign. And I was right--the food's spectacular, and cheap too.
Posted by: Mark Hasty | September 30, 2005 07:58 PM
